(The Isle Royale blathering begins in the previous entry)
I got to West Caribou well before sunset, but somehow, I felt all guilty about having ditched the guys. So I scoped out the tent sites (both shelters were taken by powerboaters, but I didn't even know there *were* shelters, so was feeling spoiled by the mere existence of outhouses and picnic tables), and I hung out on the dock, waiting. I even had two appeasing beers in my hand, unopened... (come on... you'd be pissed at me if I just took off and had a lame excuse like "I had to pee" and, if pressed, also admitted that I really liked paddling away from you because it was *fun*. You would, wouldn't you? If you'd invited me on a trip? Yeah.)
And then Hart pulled up, and I handed over the beer and tried to apologize for being a ditching sort of girl, but he had no idea what I was talking about. Apparently, he and Ray *expected* me to ditch. He told me they'd invited me in part because they figured I'd bugger off on my own! I would have mulled over the sulkworthy potential of that, except they were right on all counts: I am the ditching sort, I was thrilled by the official permission to bugger off on my own, and I wouldn't follow them around saying "whatcha doin'?" very often (the notable exception to this would of course be if one of them started unwrapping a *big* bar of chocolate. Then I would likely not be above whatcha doin' level).
While Ray - who came a bit later - set up and opened his own beer, Hart started cooking dinner for himself and Ray, and I enjoyed the other of the two beers I'd dug out of the boat (my tent was set up pretty fast after I got the word that nobody was mad at me! You can follow the logic, can't you... if someone ditches you and gets to the site first, it's just doubly insulting if she also sets up her tent. So I didn't until Hart started scoping out his preferred site. Which was under a fallen tree. Some malarkey about lightning never strikes twice, which we *know* is bunk. But my tent was nowhere near that spot!)
Oh, and then there was a birthday celebration, tripper style. Last year, Bill made a cake out of some bizarre no-bake mix. This year, Hart and Ray assembled a cake out of granola bars, and lit birthday candles, and pulled out a bottle of kahlua. And at a picnic table by candlelight (and the whine of mosquitos and the smell of citronella and deet) we ended our first day of the Isle Royale trip. I was so excited for some bigger distances (with ditching permission!) the next day.
But of course, that didn't happen. There was some wind, and some rain. And Hart's tent didn't get smushed, but our travelling plans did. I was very frustrated with the doom-and-gloom squawking of the VHF. I proclaimed it to be a liar. 
I wanted to paddle! Three days of driving! A tiny paddle! And now we sit! Grrrr. There was nothing to do but help the guys move the picnic table into one of the now vacated shelters and cook my lazy day breakfast of bacon and eggs. And check the water on the other side of the island every 20 minutes and proclaim "I think it's good! we can paddle!". I was overruled. We were sheltersitting.
Except, of course, sheltersitting is boring. A fact we figured out before we were even done breakfast. So there were a few hours of exploring the shores of West Caribou (the outer, Superior side felt very much like a reef shelf on an ocean. Minus the tide pools). There was some bushwhacking in an unsuccessful attempt to circumnavigate the island. There was the exploration of a trail near the park 
headquarters compound - and this required paddling! And that paddling allowed a few minutes of play out on the exposed side, and that was fun fun fun. Also fun was when Hart balanced on a a slippery board on the trail and tried to place his food for scale for a picture of the huge skunk cabbage, and just after I took the picture he lost his balance and leaped into the swamp. Ok, that was more fun for me than for Hart, but still. You take what you can get on windbound rainy days, 
and this was fun while being outside and exploring. I'm not that picky...
But mostly, we sat: in the shelter, by the fire (later, some powerboaters joined us), in my tent, on a log on the beach...
I feared the VHF would squawk fearful warnings for the next day too, and pored over the map for local paddling expeditions just in case before going to sleep that night...
Posted by Johanna at July 24, 2006 10:27 PM